


Strangers Passing By

by DunkinLove



Series: Beyond the Wall [2]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Angst, Angst to Ruin Your Day, Cold War, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Future Fic, Multi, Papa!Illya, Protective Gaby, Secret Children, Secret Relationship, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 14:11:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7108447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DunkinLove/pseuds/DunkinLove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Illya and Gaby plan a clandestine meeting in a park.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strangers Passing By

**Author's Note:**

> This can either be a prequel to my fic [The Other Side](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5238257) or a standalone work if you prefer.
> 
> I made a [Story Aesthetic](http://nostalgicexpatriate.tumblr.com/post/151519676825/yet-another-aesthetic-board-for-my-tmfu-future-fic) for this fic.

Illya received the signal just before midnight two days prior. 

He had spent the entire evening pacing the small dimly lit hotel room listening to the hissing static of his shortwave radio. He checked and rechecked the frequency no less than thirty times, paranoia grating at his nerves, worried that he had missed this precious signal that comes only once per year. When the static breaks, he sprints across the room to grab the note pad that sat prepared next to the radio. After a few tense moments the soft voice recites the sequence of numbers slowly and clearly. He jots the numbers down, checks for their accuracy on the second recitation, and once he has confirmed they are correct, briefly allows himself drink in the sound of her voice. 

The number stations he typically tunes into either crackle with the hypnotic clicks of Morse code or unnatural electronically synthesised speech, as impersonal as their messages. Tonight, this voice was warm and familiar and its message incomparable in importance to all of the transmitted messages of the previous year combined. 

He listened to the voice with a heavy sense of nostalgia, her accent having become nearly imperceptible over the years. With a final series of zeros the transmission cuts off and static fills the room once again, bringing him back to the present. Switching off the radio, Illya quickly decoded the numbers on his pad, anxious to know his objective. 

_West Berlin, Victory Column 11:00 at 3 o'clock._

Destroying the paper as soon as the message was read, Illya packed his things and left the anonymous, purpose-rented hotel room. He had less than 48 hours to reach Berlin.

_

On the 25th of July he spent the morning of his fortieth birthday staring at the same paragraph in the _Berliner Morgenpost_ as he sat upon a carefully chosen bench in West Berlin's Tiergarten. The summer sun glinted off the golden statue atop the Victory Column and into his eyes where he had positioned himself at the monument's 3 o'clock angle as instructed. 

He checks his watch. Five minutes to 11.00. His pulse picks up in anticipation and nerves. He glances up to scan the nearby pedestrians. Families, couples and individuals stroll through the park, enjoying their Sunday morning. Everyone around him radiates calm. No one is in a rush to get anywhere. Illya can only feel his heart pounding in his chest as the hour hand on his watch hits 11. 

He forces himself to concentrate on the paper in front of him, to squelch the urge to look up at every new person who enters his field of vision. He mentally reminds himself that he is a spy. He had been undercover watching marks from a distance hundreds of times before. All those missions, however, now felt insignificant compared to this rendezvous that took place on the 25th of July every summer for the past three years. If anything were to go wrong, if he were never able to do this again, he doesn't know what he would do to himself.

He hears them before he sees them. The park is busy, in the centre of the city, and the chattering of voices, birdsong and traffic fills the air but he knows distinctly the moment her voice reaches his ear. He grips the paper in his hands tighter, using every ounce of self-control to stop himself from whipping around in their direction. Her voice has taken on a light tone that he has not heard her use with anybody else. A smaller voice answers. Illya holds his breath so he can hear the words. Some of the first he had ever heard from the little voice. 

Not three metres ahead a small child runs into view in the grassy expanse in front of him. She bends to tear a dandelion from the ground and looks back to her mother in delight. Gaby knells beside the girl to teach her the German word for the flower before glancing over her shoulder. She meets Illya's eyes with a mixture of relief and barely contained anxiety. 

She had come. Just as she had promised nearly four years ago when they had resigned themselves to the fact that he couldn't exist in their lives without serious threat. When they had both agreed that the child deserved a normal existence without fear of being used as a pawn. But with that agreement Illya had challenged that photographs would not be enough; inadequate, dangerous in their physicality, in fact. He had to see even if he couldn't touch. She had consented, but with strict terms. Once a year, completely in secret, and no contact. This she had promised him. This annual presence for him to hold onto for the remainder of the year. 

She picks the girl up, coaxing her to look in his direction so he might see her face. She turns and her curious eyes focus somewhere off in the distance above his head. He chokes down the urge to speak her name, anything, to get her attention, but she doesn't recognise the man on the bench. She doesn't know him as one of the few people in the world she can trust. He is but another stranger in the park that can be glanced at and forgotten in favour of a bright object or her mother's face. 

Gaby's eyes meet his own and he aches when he sees pity in them, perhaps even an apology as her child -their child- swivels about to look in another direction. She encourages the girl to look back, her light voice breaking slightly. She buries her face in the child's short hair as she whispers to her. Illya can't hear the words. It's just one more conversation he isn't privy to.

The paper has gone slack in his lap as he watches his daughter in reverence. Gaby sets the girl down. She has grown strong in the past year. No longer threatening to tumble over with every step. She engages with the world around her with an innocent curiosity that he, a man of forty, envies. What he wouldn't give to have been there to see her discover it.

Gaby takes the child's hand and leads her toward a shaded path winding through the park. Illya gives them several minutes leeway, confirming once again that they weren't being followed, before gathering his paper and heading off in the same direction. On his way, he picks up the discarded dandelion and places it in his pocket.

Illya strolled down the tree-lined path just far enough behind to be just another pedestrian but close enough to be within earshot. Still holding onto her mother's hand, the girl chattered in a peculiar mix of English and German. Gaby answered her accordingly, corrected when needed, and mirrored her daughter's smiles with a tinge of sadness. 

Illya wondered if she knew any Russian and frowned when he admitted the answer was likely no. If he could have been there, he would have taught her. He'd start with simple words: одуванчик, дерево...отец. In a few years she would have been fluent. He allowed himself to indulge in a daydream of the two of them holding a conversation that even her mother couldn't understand. Just the two of them.

The girl released Gaby's hand and ran several paces ahead, looking back periodically at her mother before bounding ahead. Mid-run she trips over unsteady feet and plants on the pavement with a small thud. Illya's instincts quicken his pace to reach the girl but Gaby is there within a moment, gathering her into her arms. She hushes her fussing after kissing her hands. The child calms and rests her head on Gaby's shoulder as they continue walking, looking behind her and straight at Illya but a few feet behind.

She looks at him with his mother's eyes, intelligent and contemplative, inspecting him with a solemnity he often sees in the mirror. The world quiets and they hold each other's gaze for several moments. He chances a small smile and warmth spreads through him when she shyly reciprocates it before burying her face in her mother's shoulder. 

At the zebra crossing at the Tiergarten's main boulevard Gaby makes to head back west. Their short time together is over, and Illya will continue onward east. As they wait for the cross signal with other milling pedestrians, Gaby avoids his gaze, tears barely contained at the edges of her eyes. She murmurs an almost inaudible "Ich vermisse dich," before walking forward at the signal. In the midst of the passing crowd, Illya walks cattycorner, but not before briefly allowing his hand to pass by his daughter's head, catching a blonde curl and letting it pass between his index and middle fingers. "Я тебя люблю," he whispers in passing to them both.

Illya continues east. He doesn't have the willpower to look back or he'll never return.

__

The static of the radio hisses in the small East Berlin flat, just as it had in Russia two days prior. He is set to their frequency, pacing and daring to hope he'll receive another message; that she'd changed her mind, she needed more time, beg him to leave with her. The hours pass and his hands shake. Just before midnight he curses the city, the Wall, their countries, both of them. The radio is in pieces among the splinters of the mirror and the blood from his fists. He sits on the bathroom floor, broken too, waiting for a year to pass.

**Author's Note:**

> With all the amazing smut/romance, mission fics, etc. as of late, this fic is the Debbie Downer of the thread. So, apologies for that, but writing Illya with angst is so much fun, I just _couldn't_ pass this up.
> 
> If you enjoyed this fic (you sadist) and want to know what happens afterward, feel free to read [The Other Side](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5238257). I still may expand upon this series although I'm not 100% sure what direction I would take it in...
> 
> I have several Tumblr [fic aesthetic boards](http://nostalgicexpatriate.tumblr.com/tagged/fic-aesthetic) for this series, if you're into that sort of thing...(some of the pictures may be considered spoilers, be warned.)
> 
> (I don't have any kids so I have no idea if the behaviour of the child in this fic is appropriate for a 3-4 y/o. Maybe? Sorry if I am way off!)


End file.
